By John L. AaronAugust 20th, 2008Thanks to
the generosity of its grand sponsor Insaf “Birdman” Ali
of 2A’s Mechanical, Inc. the New York Guyana Tri-County Twenty20
cricket tournament was last weekend’s cricket ticket in the
Big Apple. The very colorful day’s worth of cricket at Idlewild
Park resulted in Demerara edging 2007 champions Berbice in an encore
performance of last year, when an Essequibo XI was introduced for
the first time to the tournament in New York. (Gallery)

Following a very
successful benefit dinner for former Guyana and West Indies Test player
Sew Shivnarain, the previous night at the Chateau Royale, the tournament,
now in its fourth year, got off to a start and in honor of the former
Berbice cricketer who migrated to New York in the mid-80s.

Former
Guyana and West Indies Test player Sew Shivnarain (green cap)
flip the coin as officials looks on. (Photos
by Shiek Mohamed)

Demerara Team.

2A’s
Mechanical staff.(Photo
by John Aaron)

The stage was
set for a very colorful display of uniforms, compliments of 2A’s
Mechanical, Inc. and cricketing performances by some very colorful
and exciting players. Essequibo was dressed in gold with green trim,
Berbice in a baby blue with yellow trim and Demerara in the burgundy
of the West indies. With white balls in play against a newly painted
light blue sightscreen, the sun decided to peek out on the day’s
proceedings – two matches; one champion.

Qualifying
Match
Essequibo vs Demerara
Essequibo, making their second appearance in as many years, could
not get pass the Steve Massiah led Demerara XI, despite giving an
excellent account of themselves, in the day’s first match. Winning
the toss Demerara, offered a batting strip that gave very little,
no doubt affected by some very heavy downpours the previous evening.

Essequibo after a struggled start, eventually reached
109 for nine in their 20 overs. It was an asking rate of just under
six runs per over, and not beyond the reach of a star-studded Demerara
XI. The Essequibo batsmen offered very little resistance against the
bowling attack of Demerara, struggling to get going, while committing
batting and running errors that resulted in such a low posted total.
Rafman with 24, Mark Gomes and Gregory Sewdial each with 16 runs apiece
were the most effective batsmen for Essequibo. Essequibo skipper Tamesh
Balwant was run out before he even faced one ball, by a hesitant and
somewhat inexperienced Gregory Sewdial. It was a big blow to Essequibo,
because Cambio, as Balwant is familiarly called was expected to pull
his team back from the brink of total collapse, when he walked to
the middle, however, Demerara smelled blood and quickly put Essequibo
out of its misery.

The Essequibo wickets fell at 17; 25; 27; 47; 56;
90; 91; 94; and 106. Bowling for Demerara: Sadloo had figures of 3-0-24-2,
while King, Massiah, Nandalall and McGarrell got into the act, each
grabbing one wicket apiece.

Demerara in reply was off to a disastrous start losing
their first wicket with only six runs on the board. However, it was
a game-faced Demerara who exhibited confidence in reaching the targeted
score, despite Essequibo offering several chances via dropped catches
to Demerara. All-rounder Neil McGarrell was dropped twice, once by
Travis Rodney off the bowling of Telston Johnson. That put down may
have been the turning point of the match, as the hard-hitting McGarrell
capitalized on his chances; slapping 52 not out off of 36 balls with
4x4s and 1x6. Skipper Massiah and Sadloo each departed with 13 apiece,
as Demerara edged towards victory at 112 for 6 off 19 overs, and the
waiting arms of Berbice.

Championship
Match
Berbice vs Demerara
Berbice led by Zamin Amin won the toss and offered Demerara first
shot at the scorecards. Demerara was quickly in hot water as skipper
Steve Massiah was caught by Zamin Amin off the bowling of Khaleem
Bux, attempting to square drive the bowler. It was the first ball
Massiah had faced, and the first ball Bux had bowled. Score: Demerara
0 for 1. More disaster, the next wicket would fall with the score
at 4. That’s where the bleeding stopped as Zaheer Saffie and
Syed Mohamed closed ranks on the Berbice bowlers and posted a 73-run
partnership. Saffie, 56 not out off 48 balls with 4x4s. Mohamed 48
off 35 balls with 4x6s and 3x4s to his credit, were significant contributors,
before returning to the stands.

Demerara would go on to add another 46 runs, bringing
their total to 123 off their allotted 20 overs, as their fall of wickets
were recorded at 0; 4; 77; 113; and finally 123 for five wickets.
Bowling for Berbice: Khaleem Bux surprisingly only bowled three overs
and ended with figures of 3-0-21-2, while Deryck Kallicharran 4-0-15-1,
Sudesh Dhaniram 4-0-24-1 and Zamin Amin 4-0-26-1 rounded out the bowling
figures.

The Idlewild wicket continued to offer very little
to both batsman and bowler, despite the arrival of bright sunshine
shortly after the day’s matches got underway at 11:20am. Balls
sent airborne landed with a thud in the outfield and stayed there,
while those on the matting did not get back up much further, forcing
the batsmen to constantly adjust their stroke-play.

Berbice, in response to Demerara’s asking rate
of 6.15 runs per over, enjoyed an opening stand of 55, as Marlon Kallicharran,
28, and Andrew Gonsalves, 21, appeared set to demolish the Demerara
bowling attack, but not before some very stingy bowling destroyed
the middle order of the Berbice batting line-up. Berbice lost their
first six wickets before their score reached 75, and the match did
not appear set to pay full honor to one of the well-known Berbicians
– Sew Shivnarain.

Deryck Kallicharran, 12, and Khaleem Bux, 11, struggled
to make something happen, but unearthed very little, as the Demerara
bowlers extracted whatever little they could from the dead track.
End result; the Berbice wickets fell at 55; 58; 58; 58; 62; 72; 84;
84; and 91. Bowling for Demerara: Zaheer Saffie: 4-1-14-3; Kumar Nandalall:
4-0-12-2; Neil McGarrell; 3-0-9-1; and Reon King: 4-0-22-1 was responsible
for the Berbice collapse and Demerara returning to the winner’s
circle after being absent from that exalted position last year.

It was a crushing defeat for the Berbice XI who were
highly favored to repeat as champions, however, on a track that did
not particularly favor bowler nor batsman, Demerara made the most
of what they had to work with, to bring home a victory that would
have been described only one way by the late Jackie Gleason (1915-1987)
“How sweet it is!”

It was sweet indeed, for the players (well, at least
Demerara), MVP Zaheer Saffie, Special Awardee Neil McGarrell, the
New York cricket fans, cricket in the metropolitan area, honoree Sew
Shivnarain, and the grand sponsor Insaf “Birdman” Ali,
who must have been very pleased by the response to the event.

New York’s regional representative to USACA
Krish Prasad, served as the Master-of-Ceremony for the awards following
the championship match and he did a fantastic job, topping only that
which he had done the previous evening at the Sew Shivnarain benefit
dinner.

Hats off to the Birdman, fellow business associates,
and his friends who all chipped in one way or another to make the
day’s cricketing event the success it was. Without financial
supporters the likes of Birdman, cricket would be no where in the
New York area. One cannot express enough appreciation for what such
individuals do, simply for the love of the game.